VfB Stuttgart narrowly missed out on reaching the DFB Cup final. While one scene particularly annoys the trainer, one of his professionals makes him sit up and take notice.
Sebastian Hoeneß had to bite his lip so as not to make it too clear. So the VfB Stuttgart coach only spoke of “a scene that influences the game. From our point of view, that’s annoying.”
Leverkusen’s Robert Andrich, who had a yellow card, fouled Stuttgart’s Enzo Millot. But instead of showing yellow-red, referee Daniel Schlager didn’t even whistle for a free kick. “And the player in question then makes it 1-1,” said Hoeneß, referring to Andrich’s shot, which turned the game into a 3-2 win for Bayer Leverkusen. In Stuttgart’s opinion, the midfielder should no longer have been on the pitch.
National player Andrich saw the whole thing differently. “It wasn’t anything bad,” he said: “The referee didn’t come to me either, and somehow no one really complained. That’s why I was surprised that so many people came to me after the final whistle and said: ‘Oh ‘But you were lucky.'” You can see from the TV pictures “that I’m already on his heels. But at a normal pace and in a normal situation.”
Undav: “The two best German teams”
Despite the anger and the defeat, the Stuttgart team could be proud of their performance in an at times inspiring cup fight against the Bundesliga leaders. Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso said appreciatively: “Great praise and great respect. That was the best opponent we had in the BayArena this season.”
Hoeneß was happy to accept the praise. “It was a great football game. We can be proud of what we showed.” But Bayer scored a “lucky punch that hurt us a lot” with the winning goal in the 90th minute.
His striker Deniz Undav even said that “the two best German teams at the moment” met on Tuesday. Hoeneß did not want to agree to this with a view to FC Bayern in second place. “If you look at the table, that’s not true. There’s another team that is ten points ahead of us,” he said. “But I know what Deniz means. I think we can agree that these are two teams that are having a lot of fun right now.”
2024-02-07 07:00:26
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